


But They're Just Old Light

by orphan_account



Series: We Don't Own Our Heavens Now [1]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-16
Updated: 2013-01-16
Packaged: 2017-11-25 01:48:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/633801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Louis gets lost after a gig and bumps into what he thinks is an angel. Also: Louis likes to pretend he’s got control over his life but he really doesn’t so when he ends up sprawled on the sidewalk, he thinks the guy who tries to help him out is an angel and for the first time in the longest time, Louis feels like he’s finally in control of his own life, that he’s actually okay again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	But They're Just Old Light

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Regina Spektor's 'Samson'.

It’s too loud. It’s always too loud.

Wherever he is, whoever he’s with, he finds that it all gets too loud. Most days, he can handle it fine. He’s lived with the constant noise for over three years now and he’s used to it, really. But then there are some days where he feels like he doesn’t belong in his own skin, where his bones feel like they’re too fragile, like they’re about to break and he’s about to crumble down. 

Tonight is one of those days. 

The concert’s just ended, everyone’s already down on the dance floor and throwing up their hands, laughing as they tip drink after drink into their mouths, all enjoying and drowning in each others company. The rest of the band’s scattered around the area. Louis sees Niall in the center of it all, laughing as he turns around on the floor, just pure and utter bliss on his face, his blue eyes catching in the lights and shining so, so bright and vivid. 

He thinks Liam’s probably by the bar, or going around talking to people while Zayn’s gone out to smoke before he dives in all this madness. And Louis’s making his way out the door.

It’s not like he doesn’t love his band, no. He loves all of them, really. He loves spending time with them, loves performing and the stage and making complete idiots of themselves for thousands, thousands of people to see. He might be leaving but that doesn’t mean he isn’t happy. In fact, he’s never felt any happier. It’s always the same after every concert. Louis finds himself on top of the world and feeling like he can do anything, can run head first into a speeding train and survive it. But underneath all of that, from the post-concert feel and the sheer adrenaline that’s still coursing through his blood, making his veins just sting and sing, burn so brightly underneath his skin, Louis also feels like it’s all becoming too much, that it’s all too loud all of a sudden.

He doesn’t turn around, doesn’t look to anywhere else but the dark empty street of the back of the club. Nobody’s noticed he’s left and he’d rather keep it that way, wants at least five minutes to himself and the silence. When he tries to take a step forward, he finds himself leaning slightly to the left, not quite finding his balance. A laugh escapes his mouth when he realizes that he’s maybe a little bit drunk, a straight line looking like such a challenge right now for him.

But he’s already out and the night air’s just cold enough to make his skin sting, to douse the fire in his veins and calm the pumping of his blood. It’s not as loud here but there’s still that incessant ringing in his ears that makes him feel like he’s on stage all over again and that thousands of girls are screaming the lyrics to their songs right back at them, thousands of girls wanting their attention. It’s a roar most days but when he’s alone, it’s quieted down to a slight buzz just at the back of his head that he can tune out, mostly, anyway. 

Louis finds this all perfect, though. He sneaks a peek over his shoulder, finds the doors still closed and then he grins before he swings a bottle to his lips, having nicked one off the counter just before he’d left. He might’ve left the party scene but he sure isn’t stopping it, even if that means he’s just going to have a little party by himself.

Right now, he feels like it’s the best thing for him. He’d never had dreams of really losing himself in the sea of people and adoration, of love and hysteria, of drugs and the alcohol. Louis hadn’t signed that contract for the fame, he’d signed it for his passion, for his own love for the stage and performing, for singing. Now he has the fame - he’s never taken it for granted, really. - but he also wants his peace, wants his quiet. 

He’s the type of person to know what he wants and also what he needs and he certainly isn’t the type of celebrity that lets himself lose in all of the insanity around him. Louis prides himself in that. Of course he’s gone home completely trashed, barely making it to his own bed. But he hasn’t exactly spiraled out of control - a little voice in his head whispers, ‘yet’, but Louis shakes it off, knows himself better now to know that he won’t let that happen to himself, not when he’s so in control.

Of course, the only way to get his grip to loosen on all of this control business is alcohol. He doesn’t avoid it, doesn’t really limit himself but he’s always felt responsible. He takes another gulp of it and lets out a little laugh, casts a glance around the area to find it completely deserted. It’s dark and the rest of the crew is still inside so he doesn’t have a car, but it’s a good night out, even if it’s cold and he’s left his coat on a pile by their booth. 

He’s already consumed a third of the drink when he thinks that what he thought was a good idea has really proven to turn out like shit for him. 

Because the thing is, while Louis thinks he’s in control, he really isn’t. He’s always needed Liam to pull him away and to sit him down, always needed Zayn’s calm and calculating looks and he’s always welcomed Niall’s loud laugh because it drowns him and it pushes away the darkness that’s suddenly coming all too close, threatening to consume him. For even a few seconds of the day, with his boys Louis feels better, feels like while he’s really not in control, he can pretend he is and while he thinks he’s got all of this handled rather carefully, he doesn’t. He needs them, has always wanted their constant presence around him. 

Tonight, though, he’s alone and he’s deluded himself into thinking that he’s going to make it out there - literally in the cold dark, a bottle of vodka swinging in his grip. It’s all an illusion he’s created for himself, the image of control over his life, because the truth is, Louis doesn’t have control of his life. He’d been forced to drop it when the noise had been too much, his mind far too crowded and when he’d realized that he didn’t have anymore space to move, can’t even take so much as a step forward or back without the whole world going into a frenzy. 

It’s all too much on most days and without the other three, Louis feels like he could spend the whole day curled up into a ball, trying to block out the noise even if he’s all alone in a hotel room, so far up from the ground, from everyone else. 

But he never admits it to himself, though. Very rarely accepts the fact that he’s slipped up, fucked his own life over and now he hasn’t any control on anything he does. He looks down at the bottle of alcohol, looks up at a dim street light and into his foggy reflection from a parked car and this is one of those nights where he gives up, raises the bottle one last time to his lips and takes a long and hard swig at it.

He drops it to the side and slides down against the wall, head buried in his hands as he feels his fingers shake. Suddenly, his nerves are on fire again and his bones feel like they might break and that he’ll crumble. He feels vulnerable out here in the open alone. 

It’s quiet, though. It’s the sort of quiet that he hasn’t really heard in a while now. He feels like it’s so foreign, this calm and this peace, this quiet and this coldness in the dark. He looks down the streets and he doesn’t see anything else move. The street lights are too dim here, there aren’t any cars going down the road and it’s suddenly too cold but at the same time, Louis welcomes it, wants to feel the harsh sting of the cold on his skin. 

Louis leans back, his head hitting glass. He doesn’t groan, doesn’t move, just closes his eyes because once more, he’s succumbed to alcohol. He doesn’t have control over his life but he’s got control of the alcohol - and if he decides that the kind of control he wants of it is to be completely out of control, to just take it, bottle after bottle, then so be it. 

He’s already stumbled so far out int he dark and he’s far beyond the point of sober right now that he doesn’t remember which way he’d come from, doesn’t remember the name of the club - okay, so they never really mentioned the name to him, he’d just followed them there. 

Louis thinks he might need help, but there’s no Liam, Zayn or Niall in sight so he thinks that he’s doomed and that he’s going to die very, very soon out here in the cold.

The headlines tomorrow are going to read - Louis Tomlinson, member of One Direction, found cold and dead in whatever the hell street his drunk idiot self has stumbled into!

Even in his head, it sounds painful and he cringes. 

Louis turns his gaze up, though, trying to make sense of the empty sky above him. There are no stars and the sky looks even darker now, or maybe it’s just his eyesight. Or maybe it’s just how hard he is on himself right now, just how bleak he thinks his life is, after the concerts and the screaming and the lights.

He realizes this in the dead quiet, by himself, that there isn’t anything in him after all of that. Strip the fame off of him, the layers and layers of Louis Tomlinson that the media, management, even the fans, have forced on him and he’s left bare and vulnerable, he’s just Louis from Doncaster. 

It’s one of those nights where Louis feels vulnerable all over again, where he feels completely useless after singing to thousands of girls, where he feels like it might be too much but it’s never going to be really enough, not in the deeper sense of things, though. He clenches his fingers, intending to take another sip but his fingers only catch air. 

Out of faith of his own self, completely feeling like shit because he’s nothing more than a fabricated little pop star that’s lost control of his life, and now he’s out of alcohol, too. Add all of that to how out of his fucking mind he is and maybe he might have enough to get a break. 

He hears a bell chime from behind him and then what he thinks is a door pushes at his back. Louis doesn’t even have the power to hold his own ground or footing because he falls to the side and ends up sprawled on the pavement. He closes his eyes, nails digging into the cold asphalt and he breathes in. He breathes in the smell of alcohol and of the stench from all too much fame and no control, he breathes in the person he’s become, the person he’s told himself he’d never become and in that moment, he doesn’t wish for Liam or Zayn or Niall to come pick him up, dust him off and then tell him he’s brilliant, that he’s going to be okay. He just needs the quiet, the cold, he needs to feel like he’s home in his own mind and body again.

A light tapping to the right of his head jerks him out of his thoughts. Someone’s trying to lift his head up and Louis doesn’t want to, he’s enjoying the pavement just fine, thank you. But whoever it is is insistent because they’re talking to him, asking him if he’s alright. 

“No.” Louis says, his voice coming out more like a little kid’s petulant retort for an argument they have no chance of winning. Louis cracks an eye open and sees a pale hand hovering in front of his face, sees long fingers and dangling bracelets. 

Louis reaches for his hand. It’s not cold, it’s warm. Louis brings the hand closer to his face and he lifts his head off the sidewalk so he could press the hand to his cheek. The fingers twitch but Louis takes no notice of it, likes the warmth against his skin. His eyes flutter to a close again until the person pulls away from his hold and then puts his hands on either side of Louis’ face. 

What he sees next, he thinks it might be an angel.

The light creates a sort of halo just behind him as the boy crouches down, Louis’ face cradled in his hands, his fingers gently grazing his cheeks. Even in the darkness, his eyes look like the perfect kind of green, the green he constantly sees in his mind when he closes his eyes and thinks of that perfect and calm abode of sweet surrender, the place where he thinks he’ll finally find himself. 

Louis’ heart flutters and he thinks it might’ve skipped a beat or two because looking into this strangers eyes, he thinks - he feels - that he’s home. And then Louis’ gaze takes all of his face in and he sees a worried crease to this guy’s eyebrows, sees pretty pink lips turned down, looking concerned. His hair is a mess of brown curls but he looks so, so beautiful and he feels so, so warm that Louis really feels like this is it, this is an angel and his prayers have finally been answered. 

He reaches for him, one hand slung around the boy’s neck as his other comes to the front of his shirt, fingers gripping at the material. The other guy finds his balance and then slowly rises, bringing Louis up with him. Louis doesn’t even have the strength or energy anymore because he completely stumbles into the stranger’s arms, feels like surrender isn’t so bad after all. 

Maybe miracles do exist because he’s got an angel holding him right now and nothing’s ever felt more right. The noise has completely died down now and he’s not so cold anymore, doesn’t feel like his bones might break or that he might completely shatter and crumble into pathetic little pieces of the pop star he’s made a complete mess of that he is. 

He looks back up at the guy and his eyes lock with the greens and Louis can’t help but smile, even if his brain doesn’t even register half of what’s happened to him, of why he’s here in the first place. The other half is fighting with reason that only a very drunk Louis could come up with - he’s here because he’s finally facing salvation and this angel’s come down to take him up to safety and to eternal happiness, this angel’s going to save him and this angel’s told everybody to shut up because Louis can’t hear anything, no distant buzzing in his ear or the roars of thousands of people. It’s just him in his own mind - he finds that surprising, feels his own voice, all alone in his head, is a foreigner. 

“Knew you’d come,” Louis finds himself murmuring against the cotton of the guy’s shirt. He leans in completely against him and closes his eyes, takes a deep breath in. He breathes in a faint smell of cinnamon and of warmth but he also smells like warm Sunday mornings, the type of mornings he’d never had the pleasure of in so long. It’s maybe past midnight already and yet the guy still smells like Sunday morning, he smells like soft comfort and relief, he smells like home. 

He really is an angel. 

“What?” His voices makes Louis open his eyes and he looks up at him and then smiles. Sweet surrender, this is beautiful. “I’m sorry, but are you - are you alright?”

Louis nods his head minutely and then lets out a giggle (that he’d never acknowledge he ever made) and says, “‘Course I am, silly. Finally alright, after so long.”

There’s silence as the other guy just stands there trying to hold Louis up and Louis’ just there, waiting but calmer now, feeling like his mind’s finally caught up with the beating of his heart. “Wait, how’d I die, though?”

—

There’s a warm glow of orange light that’s bathed the whole room and Louis feels warmer in here, his head cradled in his arms. The guy-slash-stranger-slash-angel is off by the counter, fixing him tea or something of that sort. Louis doesn’t like coffee and he thinks that angels should know him well enough to know that he hates coffee, that if there’s only coffee up there then he’s going to have to think really hard on whether he should go or just ask the angel to drop him off the next highway to hell. 

“Are you alright?” He’d asked him as he sat Louis down and Louis had just nodded, a faint smile on his face and his eyes drooping to a close. Of course he is, he’s alright now, never felt anymore fine than he did in this very moment. “You’re from that boy band, yeah? Are you - do you need me to call anyone for you?” 

Louis just shook his head then and patted the angel’s shoulder, “Oh, I had no idea we get cell reception in heaven!” He’d backed away from the table, eyes wide with concern and maybe shock as Louis closed his own. 

When he opens his eyes again, he notices the little tables, the glass cases for the pastries, empty now, and then a pair of speakers just up ahead. A bakery, really? Heaven takes the form of a bakery? Well, maybe it’s a pit stop. Or, if heaven really is a bakery then it’s not so bad, at least Louis would always have an endless stream of tea and biscuits, never running out with the scones at all. 

A cup of tea is sat in front of him and Louis looks up, a grin on his face. 

“I’m Harry, okay, and I’m going to - I’m going to help you. Louis, right? Drink this, please. It’ll clear your head.” Louis takes the tea, feels how hot it is through the ceramic and without waiting for it to cool or anything, he takes a long sip that has Harry reaching for him, as if trying to stop him from scalding his own throat. 

“Wrong.” Louis says, putting his cup down and looking up at Harry who’s got his phone out, fingers tapping against the side nervously. When Harry raises an eyebrow at him, Louis just snickers, “You’re not Harry, you’re an angel.”

—

Louis doesn’t feel in control of the situation, but it’s okay because this is totally the kind of situation that you let other people handle, and in this case, when it came to Louis’ own surrender and walk home, then it’s Harry. 

Harry’s an angel. He’s beautiful like one, with bright and wide innocent green eyes that reminds Louis of the calmest river, the sound of his voice like the rolling of a stream, slowly lulling him to sleep, the feel of his hands warm like the sun’s first rays on a morning just after a harsh winter. 

Louis looks up to check the little clock on the wall and notes that it’s already three in the morning. Harry is seated just in front of him, dark circles under his eyes. He looks tired and weary, the curls looking less of a brushed out mess and more of an actual mess. Even in his current state, Louis feels sad for him, because the burden of carrying such a mess of a human being like himself up to heaven has probably taken its toll on the poor angel.

He reaches for Harry’s hand across the table and then smiles at him, “Do you need to sleep? You can sleep. Although I don’t think a table would be very comfortable, but…I’m sorry for keeping you up.”

Harry blinks at him through his curly fringe, his fingers returning the light pressure on Louis’ hand. Louis’ notices he’s looked much calmer now, even, and he doesn’t react with a slight flinch or twitch whenever Louis says something, so Louis assumes that they’re friends now, that Harry’s accepted him, screwed up beyond repair and all. 

“It’s fine. I’m gonna stay up with you.” Harry says simply, the corners of his mouth twitching up slightly in a smile. Louis nods at him and leans back against his chair. 

“Thanks. Because - you’ve made the noise stop, it’s quiet now.” His voice comes out softer now, quieter. He doesn’t know if it’s okay to say this but since Harry’s obviously one sent from above to rescue him, he supposes its alright. “It’s been insane and I haven’t been myself, really, but it’s - ” Louis lets out a little hiccup followed by a short giggle. He stops himself before he dissolves in more giggles, knows himself that much that alcohol and giggles won’t really bring him much pride or justice. “- It’s quieter now, like I’m finally all alone in my head.”

It’s not that he’s hearing other voices in his head, no. He could live longer with that, but the noise in his mind is just a roar or other times a buzzing, no actual words, just noise. It’s so noisy, it’s all too much. 

Louis looks across the table at Harry and Harry’s looking at him like he completely understands. He nods his head in an okay and doesn’t say anything. Louis is thankful for that, wants the silence and the quiet so much right now. This isn’t so bad, he supposes, heaven, angels and everything. He doesn’t even mind that he’s to spend eternity in a bakeshop with a tired looking Harry because he knows everything’s going to be fine, it really will. 

“It will be.” Harry says when Louis’ voiced his own thoughts out loud. Instead of embarrassed that he’d let that slip, Louis just nods at Harry and smiles because when an angel says everything’s going to be fine, or that it will be alright, then there’s no contest against that, no lie in it. 

—

Louis wakes up to someone shaking his shoulders, his voice said over and over again. They sound worried, concerned, and Louis wonders if this is what the soul hears when it’s on the brink of death, the call of his friends and loved ones out to him, wanting him to stay one more second with them. Louis is sorry that he can’t anymore, because he’s an angel now until - 

“Lou!” 

His eyes snap open and he practically stumbles out of his chair, his head feeling heavy and his heart thumping violently.

Arms engulf him immediately and Louis stiffens until he takes in the familiar blonde, the cuddly kind of warmth that’s only ever belonged to Niall Horan. Louis clutches at him and buries his face into the crook of Niall’s neck, tries to stop himself from shaking so much. 

“Shit, Lou, we were so worried. We thought you’d been kidnapped, or that you’d fallen in a ditch or, just, fuck, Louis.” Niall sounds like he’s close to tears and Louis just holds him in the hug, closes his eyes tightly. 

When they separate, Louis looks around him and then stops short when he notices that he’s in a bakery. He looks back at Niall who’s standing beside Zayn now and then brings a hand to his head, as if that’s going to relieve the tension, the painful throbbing. 

“Where am I - and How did you?” The events from the night before come to him in a blur, his head feeling like it’s going to explode. He remembers stumbling in the darkness, laughing at himself, at what he’s become. He remembers lying on the sidewalk, remembers an angel, and a cup of tea and - “An angel!”

Zayn gives him a look at that and Niall’s mouth drops open a bit, confusion passing his face. 

Louis spins around, looks for the curly haired brown boy when he finds him talking to Liam off to the side. He points at him, then looks back at Zayn and Niall, “Yeah?” 

The angel - Harry, right, the angel has a name - looks up at Louis and the circles under his eyes are darker, his mouth looking less pink and more pale, as was the color of his cheeks. His eyes have lost its light a bit from the long night he’s spent awake. 

“I hope you don’t mind…You fell asleep sometime just before morning and, uh, one of your mates had been calling you and I recognized the name, y’know, so I answered and told them you were - ” Harry is saying, a tentative tone in his voice, looking tired but at the same time, much more awake now that Louis’ looking at him like he’s the sort of saving grace people are waiting for. 

” - That you were pissed off drunk and had gotten yourself lost!” Niall supplies with a little snicker. 

Louis drops down to a chair and buries his face in his hands, feeling like he’s maybe embarrassed himself into the next year. 

When he looks up, he finds that Harry’s looking quite apologetic, too. 

Had he really been so drunk the other night that he’d thought this kid was an angel? Louis will have to say that yes, he was, but he won’t admit - not now, anyway - just how much he thought an actual angel might save him, and Harry had, if only for a little while. Even if he isn’t - technically - an angel. 

“Oh, wow.” Louis starts, and he winces because the buzzing’s starting again, his own space very much crowded now. He settles and focuses his gaze on Harry, though, and it relieves a little bit of the stress that’s pushing down on him so hard. “I’m really, really sorry. I was - “

“Completely out of your fucking mind, Tommo.” Niall cuts in. Louis ignores him and continues. 

” - Wow, I am just seriously sorry for whatever I did - ” Louis cringes, remembering all he’s said to him, the shocked and panicked little looks from Harry after every angel reference he’d dropped. “But I’m really, really thankful, though. Harry, right?” Harry nods, acknowledging. “Harry, I’m terribly sorry and my head feels like it’s going to explode right now so I’m sorry for this shit as hell apology, too, but thank you.”

Harry beams on the other side of the room, waves a hand in the air and says, “It’s no problem. Was a bit panicked there when you wouldn’t even give me a name for anyone I could contact - ” Liam shoots Louis a look and Louis shrugs his shoulders. What, he was drunk enough to think someone was an angel, he can’t really be expected to remember them as a proper contact in case these sort of things happened. ” - but, yeah, it’s all good, mate. No worries.” 

“Thanks again, though.” Louis says, feeling a little bit embarrassed now as the full force of the night’s events hit him. He looks up at Harry, a bit cautious now because he’s said too much to him and mistaken him for an angel - that’s enough shame to last him a lifetime, really. 

The other boys start filing out of the little bakery, Louis following just behind Zayn after they’ve said their final thank yous. Louis stops short in front of the door and looks up at Harry who catches a yawn with his hand, blinking tiredly. 

“Get some sleep.” Louis says, eyes locking with Harry’s. The buzzing dies down to a white sort of noise now as Harry holds his gaze and nods his head slowly, an amused little smile on his face. 

When Louis starts to turn away, heading for one of the vans, Harry says, “Louis, you alright?”

Louis stops, deliberates the question before he looks over his shoulder. Harry isn’t smiling now, looks more concerned than ever - the look he’d fixed on Louis when Louis had said he felt better now, that everything was going to be okay and that he was saved, in a way. Louis doesn’t say anything, but he hopes the smile on his face is enough to convince him that he’s okay, or at least, that he hopes it’s going to be. It’s just one bad night (the latest on his string of horrible nights), it isn’t going to be the end of the world.

Harry just blinks at him until he raises his hand in a final wave and Louis turns around to start the small walk down the street to their van, thinking that while angels can’t lie about things finally being okay, Harry can and Louis knows that things aren’t, but he’s sure that in that small amount of time he’d spent with Harry thinking he was an angel, Louis felt, in what seems to be the longest time ever, alright.


End file.
